Set on an east-west axis, the home stays cool with shading south-facing glass, minimal west-facing glass, and operable windows that allow for natural ventilation. Energy recovery ventilators also bring fresh air into the home.

A Seattle family tasked Atmosphere Design Build with creating a sustainable dwelling in Nevada City, California, the matriarch's hometown and a historic mining community. The firm's material-driven approach channels the pioneer spirit of the gold rush, without compromising comfort or high-efficiency standards.

Simpatico Homes founder Seth Krubiner has lived in the prefab company’s nearly net-zero prototype since it was customized and lifted onsite in 2011.

Components for low-cost prefab homes designed by Habitat for Humanity and the firm Minarc for South Central Los Angeles were trucked in and assembled over three days. Photos by Art Gray.

Rice surfs the net at the built-in desk.

You can set the schedule up to a week in advance, and get push notifications when a fresh pot is ready. It brews at about 205 degrees Fahrenheit, and you can adjust the strength. You can also pause in the middle of the cycle in order to pour a cup.

Drawing power from integrated solar panels, both devices connect to Wi-Fi to relay relevant information about the soil to your phone or tablet. It will even automatically water from the hose using weather forecasts.

The Silent History is an app for your iPhone, a multi-author dystopian sci-fi novel, a mobile storytelling experiment, and a sprawling work of geo-located literature that its makers don't even fully understand. It's out there, man. Buy it! ($2)

Most impressive of all, a solar array on the roof empowers the residents to produce more energy than they consume on-site.

Vintage Alvar Aalto Table Model 91 “I thought it would be interesting to include a piece of vintage furniture, since that’s where we got our start. It’s a bold and big table for such a restrained designer, with chunky legs and decorative veneer. It’s big for 1930’s standards, and still has labels and stickers on the bottom, including one from Harvey Nichols, the original importer.”

The superimposed images of the furniture look slightly surreal, as expected, but the ability to furnish a room with multiple items and choose from such a large array of brands makes it superior to the Home Depot’s similar app.

Timer-activated coffee makers have been around for years, so it's almost hard to believe it took this long to make the device smart. Finally, Belkin made one from a partnership with Mr. Coffee, and it goes beyond scheduled brewing.

OfficeIQ, which is iOS and Android compatible, measures how many calories are burned and can sync with third-party fitness apps. Users can also just use a desktop interface if they prefer. The OfficeIQ system sends notifications to your screen when it's time to move from sitting to standing.

Regular intervals of standing reportedly reduce fatigue, minimize injury, and improve long term health. The information collected is aggregated and individual data is anonymous. Part of the goal is to measure healthy habits of an office, which could potentially be used to lower the cost of health insurance for the business.

The Museum of Modern Art added their first app to their collection, Björk's Biophilia app that interacts with the listener.

Seventy percent of smartphone and tablet owners say they'd like to control something in their house remotely from bed, such thermostats, lights, or coffee makers (an appliance 27 percent named specifically).

With its app, Sunn allows users to select any time and location, and the light will track the patterns of the sun accordingly. Trying to ignore the gray weather outside? Users can also select which season they'd like the light to reflect.

To add cards to your Coin, you need to take a photo of the front and back and then use a provided card reader to swipe the card. Once your cards have been synced, you can use the app to manage your library and choose which cards you'd like to use on the physical Coin. Although the accompanying mobile app can store an unlimited number of cards, a Coin card holds no more than eight.

Coin is about the same size as a traditional credit card, and comes in a similar plastic.

Pressing a small buton on the card lets you toggle through the different credit card accounts that you have uploaded to Coin. Currently, Coin only assimilates magnetic stripe cards and has no support for the up-and-coming EMV chip technology.

Coin uses a low-power Bluetooth signal to communicate with the app. If you ever leave your Coin behind while buying coffee, your phone will receive a notification asking whether you left without remembering to take your card. A phone is not required to use the card, however.

The Coin's screen displays the credit card brand, the last 4 digits of the card number, and the expiration date on a digital display. There's a signature panel on the back.

The Myfox Security Camera responds to these concerns with an ingenious solution: a motorized shutter. Using a smartphone app, homeowners can open and close the camera's aperture as needed. Thus, it is as effective at safeguarding your property as it is your privacy.

When you find a color scheme that resonates, the app will find brand-specific color codes that you can bring to the hardware store. Currently, it only works on interior spaces.

At $150, you pay a premium for being able to control the device from your phone — for comparison, a regular programmable Mr. Coffee costs around $40. However, if you already have the WeMo system from Belkin, which allows users to control smart devices around their home, this is a logical extension.

After analyzing the soil and getting a GPS reading, the Edyn app will tell you which plants are best suited to your soil and local climate, and what time of year to plant them.

Flip Clock application for the iPhone, $0.99

Curious World, app subscriptions from $9.99 per month via iTunes Designed for children aged 3 to 7, Curious World is a collection of games, videos, and books (accessible via iPad and iPhone) that build foundations in early learning areas like creative expression, mathematics, and health & well being. Parents can see what content their children explore to learn their interests and track their progress.

A view of the installation at the House for Contemporary Art in Belgium.

Numen's Net, occupied by gallery attendees.

Nothing but WOW ❤️❤️❤️

TapPainter also takes the wall’s current paint color into account when rendering what the new shade will look like.

You can run the app from other phones, as well, and also trigger the Tiles to make a noise to help you find them.

When you place your food on the scale, it interacts via Bluetooth with the app to let you select the item. It will then organize the data into your journal entry.

With a recently fulfilled crowd-funding campaign, the Notion system will be made, but is not shipping until July 2015. It might be worth waiting as the connected home evolves. But, given this brand’s impressive origins—the company is a product of Techstars, an startup accelerator whose graduates have an high rate of success—we expect it to be among the best options available.

Like its peer, the Nest, it takes into account information like bedtimes and the sunrise to use heating and cooling systems efficiently. Honeywell expects that you will control it mainly through the app itself, which lets you change the temperature from any location, or set it to a timer so the house gets warmed or cooled according to your expected arrival time.